Sometimes A Hat Is Just A Hat

Sometimes, a hat is just a hat.

I’ve seen the below political candidate, who like me is also a military veteran, catching heat for Stolen Valor because of a hat he was pictured wearing. Is that deserved? Some veterans certainly think so.

The hat shows the distinctive unit insignia (DUI) of the Special Forces Regiment. This is an elite and highly prestigious Special Operations unit, also known as the Green Berets.

Although I served for a couple of years in a support capacity in the 5th Special Forces Group, I was never a Green Beret and as far as I know the individual in question was never a Green Beret either. Pretending to be a Green Beret, or allowing others to think you are/were one, is stolen valor and is a huge social taboo among veterans–as well it should be. But absent any extenuating circumstances, there is, in my opinion, nothing wrong with someone wearing a hat with that unit DUI or any other on it, as long as the person is not trying to imply that he/she was in that unit if they weren’t. That baseball hat is not a green beret, and it is not official military headgear. Wearing it does not mean someone is in Special Forces, or necessarily mean that they are trying to make others think they were Special Forces.

There could be legitimate reasons why someone might wear a hat like that. The most likely one is that it could have just been a gift. Like many (and perhaps most) veterans I regularly wear military-themed apparel that people gave me. At various times I’ve worn things like an IDF t-shirt, a Republic of Korea Army hat, Australian Army lapel pins or UK Army tie tacks. At no time did I represent myself as a member of any of those organizations. Wearing those items does not automatically make me part of those teams, anymore than wearing an NFL jersey makes me a professional football player or wearing a NASA hat means I’m an astronaut.

That said, it’s usually considered bad form for veterans to wear unit-affiliated apparel for units they were never in, especially if the units are prestigious or elite. For example, even though I was in a Special Forces unit I don’t think I would wear a hat with a Special Forces DUI on it to a big public event because I was not a Green Beret and don’t want people to think that I was. But I might if, for example, someone who was there or someone who would see me there gave it to me. Additionally, politicians regularly don clothing items that constituents give them. Every time I was deployed, it seemed, some national-level political figure visited us. Each time that happened the unit commander presented him/her with a jacket or hat or some other unit-specific memento. Did they wear it in public from time to time when they got home? I hope so.

Now, there are PLENTY of military posers out there, and the “let-them-assume” types are some of the most nefarious, as they never SAY they were in X unit or did Y things, but they do things that let people THINK that they did. So I can understand on some level why people would be upset about this, especially people who were/are actually Green Berets. But I haven’t seen any evidence that is the case here, I’m happy to change my opinion on the situation if such evidence comes forth. And I can certainly understand if others see this as part of a pattern of behavior regarding inaccuracies in GOV Walz’s retelling of his military record, which included him stating (and the campaign later having to retract) that he retired as a command sergeant major and that he carried weapons “in war.” Those are not minor issues, and they speak to GOV Walz’s character as well as his military record. But that is not the point of this article, the hat is. He very well may have worn the hat for nefarious reasons, but right now I don’t see any evidence of that.

Please don’t interpret the above as support for GOV Walz, it’s not. This article is not intended to be political, I just want to provide some perspective because this is one of many issues I see the Veteran Community tearing itself apart over at the moment. The way I see it, absent any other information, things like what kind of hat a veteran is wearing is a distraction from things that matter.

The bottom line is this: rather than argue over apparel, we should be looking at, and discussing, policy. One of the two veterans on the national-level campaign trail is going to be our next vice president, and what they are going to do is far more important than what they are going to wear. I’d rather see a spirited debate about that, than this.

Sometimes, fellow veterans and veteran supporters, a hat is just a hat.

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Charles Faint is a retired US Army officer. This article represents his personal observations and does not represent a personal political view, an official position of the US government, or the views/positions of any other person or organization.

This article began as a Facebook post, and the author wishes to acknowledge and thank commenters who helped shape the final product.